Metamatic | UK | CD | 2012 | META31CD

John Foxx + The Maths: Evidence UK CD [2012]

1. Personal Magnetism
2. Evidence [Featuring – The Soft Moon]
3. That Sudden Switch
4. Talk (Beneath Your Dreams) [Featuring – Matthew Dear]
5. Neon Vertigo
6. Changelings [Featuring – Gazelle Twin]
7. My Town
8. Have A Cigar
9. A Falling Star [Gazelle Twin remix]
10. Cloud Choreography
11. Shadow Memory
12. Walk
13. Myriads
14. Only Lovers Left Alive
15. Talk (I Speak Machine Mix) [Featuring – Tara Busch]

This was intended to be a seven track EP of odds and ends that have been partially issued all over the place. Some remixes done for the band in addition to some mixes the band did for others. But when the band were in the studio recently, the juices were flowing and it became a full album after all. This is the third John Foxx + The Maths album in two years and they seem to be issuing work as if they’re running out of time. With results this spellbinding, I can hardly blame them.

“Evidence” can be divided into three artistic phases; remix work, brief instrumentals, and band songs. The boundaries have been pushed by this band from day one, so the glorious technopop of “Interplay” is but a distant memory. Likewise the transitional, darker songs of “The Shape Of Things” pointed the way to much of this album, with its return to several Foxx sonic tropes as seen through the filter of collaboration with Benge and others.

After the brief, abstract synth intro of “Personal Magnetism”, the album delivers a stunner, the massive title track, written and performed in collaboration with The Soft Moon. “Evidence” opens with a fragmented echo of the doppler synth drone of “Underpass” which soon gives way to a windblown wave of desolate white noise as Foxx probes the moral dilemmas inherent in the new surveillance state. Specifically, when observing events, how to tell the difference between intention of action and mere coincidence. The track unfolds like a slow motion car accident as Foxx’s phased vocals are as distant and remote as the moral center of the State. The song is responsible for many, many goose pimples right now and is on constant high-rotation… in my mind.

“This reaction’s automatic
When I find your face in static
A woman on Securicam
Date as stated, 5 a.m.
I’m losing sight of my objective
Memory can be so selective
Some conclusion’s unexpected
Every single strand’s connected

But is this evidence of someone’s innocence?
Or can coincidence create the same events?”

“That Sudden Switch” follows as a remote haiku of a tune with Foxx’s vocals processed into ghost space as they are on the whole of this album. This is an example of Foxx moving into his favored niche of high-tech psychedelia [See “The Golden Section”]. But this time, he is using the analog magic of Benge’s studio to inform his experiments.  Likewise, the instrumental “Neon Vertigo” sounds like a mashup of mid period Kraftwerk and pre-superstardom Pink Floyd. Both bands being Foxx touchstones. The self-contained brevity of the five instrumentals that pepper the album also bring to mind the Foxx of the “Tiny Colour Movies” project. “Neon Vertigo” is further touched by the hand of dub reggae technique to give it a further spin outward into the wilds.

“Changelings” is actually a track from Gazelle Twin’s debut album “The Entire City” [2011] which was Foxx’s favorite album of last year. Given that it was based on a series of Max Ernst paintings of the same name and that it examines The City as an totemic force, the question is how could John Foxx not love it? Here, The Maths have remixed the track and Foxx has added his own vocals to the track that place it in clear “Cathedral Oceans” territory. The gotherial result is a fantastic soundscape that exists at the far corners of the previous space that The Maths have defined for themselves.

“My Town” is a stomper that recalls early Human League with sounds I haven’t heard since “Reproduction” but the wildcard in the mix is the violin of Hannah Peel, who has played live with The Maths but this marks the first time that she was in their studio as well. Having known that Peel has played violin live with the band, it is wonderful to finally hear the results. It’s been 34 years since Foxx has been recording with violin and it’s a welcome return for those like myself who exist thousands of miles/dollars away from their concert events thus far.

The final mix of “Have A Cigar”  is another loose track that was intended for the Mojo Pink Floyd tribute CD that came out last year, but a mastering error saw the final mix issued only as a download after Mojo issued an early mix by mistake on the CD. This version fits right into the feel of this album, even though it was a rare Foxx cover. Has Pink Floyd ever sounded this funky before?

Another remix, this time by Gazelle Twin sees Elizabeth Walling adding her ethereal tones to Foxx’s vocals with an expanded mix of “A Falling Star” from the debut album, “Interplay.” The results are more heartbreaking as the original version as the song now takes place in remote, echoing corridors of sound. This was issued last year in a CD5 edition of a scant few intended for VIP ticket holders on The Maths tour last year. Needless to say, the original was one extremely rare release, and I’m thrilled that clearer minds saw fit to re-issue the result here. I’ll probably never get an original pressing of that single.

Instrumentals like “Cloud Choreography,” “Myriads,” and “Shadow Memory” are a fascinating glimpse of an alternate late 60s/early 70s as reflected in the Johnathan Barnbrook vintage NASA photo artwork. It is amazing to hear work of this nature over 40 years later. Experimental analog synthesizer composition sounds so good. Remind me again why people ever thought digital synthesis was a good idea? Laziness, perhaps.

The album reaches a pastoral climax with “Only Lovers Left Alive,” which sees Foxx more fully integrating his Cathedral Oceans long-delay echo vocal sound with one of his heart-rending ballads that have actual lyrics this time. Fans of tracks like “The Garden” will welcome the crystalline results. It’s another stunning track of technological beauty as only Foxx can deliver, this time abetted by his strongest collaborator ever in Ben Edwards.

This is followed by the bonus track, “Talk [I Speak Machine Mix]” by Tara Busch. Ms. Busch has played with The Maths as an opener and collaborated before, but I question the placing of this track at the album’s terminus. The glitchy remix of the already glitchy track really breaks the spell that “Only Lovers Left Alive” casts. There are actually two remixes of “Talk” from last year’s “The Shape Of Things” on this album, and that’s one too many, given that this album is no longer simply a repository for loose tracks. The other remix, “Talk [Beneath Your Dreams]” was remixed by Matthew Dear and it’s not a remix as much as it is a medley of Dear’s “Beneath Your Dreams” segued into his remix of “Talk” as a coda. The conceit doesn’t work too well for me. Better that they had placed Tara Busch’s mix of the track instead early in the album flow, leaving “Only Lovers Left Alive” as the final track.

This is the closest thing to a misstep that John Foxx+ The Maths have made in their three years extant. Barring a single sequencing decision I’m not thrilled with, the net result is that when the book will one day be written on John Foxx, clearer heads will place his past with Ultravox as a footnote, however influential they might have been. Because it’s his work right now in the thrilling present that is inspiring in ways that rarely happen with artists who have been active for as long as Foxx. I have no idea where they will go to next on their journey but I am most eager to see them continue.

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